Savior
by Shalla Neltrina
Summary: Hawkeye is schizophrenic Trapper used to help-can BJ take his place?


Disclaimer - This story is non-profit, and is not in any way intended to infringe on the rights of 20th Century Fox or the Hallmark channel. I don't own the characters, if I did, they'd probably all end up dead in some melodramatic way :-P

Summary – Hawkeye is schizophrenic (I know, great summary) This is set right after Trapper leaves and BJ comes to the 4077th and is based on the idea that Hawkeye drinks because he's schizophrenic. His father's presence helped at first, then he went to Korea, and Trapper and the gin helped, but then Trapper leaves, that's where the story starts.

Dedicated to anyone who gives me feedback :-) Warnings – Major darkfic, attempted suicide - bold words are Hawkeye's thoughts, italics are voices he hears.  
  
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**Savior**

The red-orange of the setting sun glinted cruelly off the martini glass clasped loosely in a surgeon's hand. Staring listlessly into the clear depths of the homemade gin, Benjamin Franklin Pierce struggled to silence the angry voices that until recently had been kept at bay.  
  
_you couldn't save me_  
  
**he left**  
  
But the voices were back with a vengeance. Or maybe back for vengeance.  
  
_you should have saved me_  
  
**no goodbye  
**  
But they weren't just voices. Hawkeye could see the torn, mutilated and bloody bodies of the soldiers and Korean children he'd been unable to save. They crowded the Swamp, jostling for position in his sight.  
  
_we would have lived_  
  
**if not for me**  
  
Hawkeye took another swig, the fiery liquor feeling like broken glass as it eroded his esophagus. The drinking used to help.  
  
_why didn't you save me_  
  
**He used to help**  
  
Maybe he could have held out longer had he the will.  
  
**I tried**  
  
**But he's gone now, he's gone and I'm alone. No, not alone, I have the people I killed to keep me company.**  
  
_I bled to death_  
  
Hawkeye had tried to self-medicate. The gin, the gin sometimes helped, some people helped.  
  
**I couldn't**  
  
What Sidney Freedman calls schizophrenia, Hawkeye calls punishment.  
  
_did you tell my kids_  
  
Punishment for his inability to save his patients.  
  
**I wish you'd all**  
  
_their daddy's dead_  
  
"Stop it!" Hawkeye screamed as he threw the glass and useless gin into the crowd of bodies. But instead of bringing the silence he wanted, the glass flew through the gristly figments of his imagination and shattered against the far wall.  
  
Hawkeye shattered with it.

_you couldn't tell me_  
  
The apparitions gathered closer as it got darker; their voices swelled, their bodies spun, Hawkeye tried to escape.  
  
_would have daddy's dead_  
  
He pushed through his tangled thoughts; the rotting bodies feeling real to his touch.  
  
_why couldn't how couldn't_  
  
He knelt to retrieve his thrown martini glass; the ghosts around him chanting louder, crowding closer.  
  
_you couldn't tell me goodbye save me  
  
death_ ** not for** _ why didn't_ ** I tried!**  
  
Picking up the biggest piece of the broken cup, Hawkeye stood and screamed, long and loud, his voice a counterpoint to the painful howls of his tormentors.  
  
He didn't know that his cries, like his demons, were all in his head.  
  
_Tell not_ **used to** _why save me bled_ ** I wish**  
  
Knowing instinctively his attackers came from within and not without, Hawkeye turned his attention to himself.  
  
Rational thought having long since fled, he held the glass shard like a scalpel over his jugular, resolving to cut the images from his traitorous body.  
  
The demons roared as if in protest to their destruction, their voices not voices anymore, but a deafening crescendo of agony, theirs and his.  
  
Emotions and colors swirled, blood red ready to join their dance, the makeshift blade poised-  
  
"Hey Hawkeye!" The new surgeon and Hawkeye's new bunkmate, BJ's voice cut its way through the thick noise.  
  
Hawkeye's head snapped up guiltily at the happy tone, his eyes scanning the crowded and shadowy tent.  
  
He saw nothing beyond the bodies, but he knew BJ was outside.  
  
"Hawkeye, you in there?"  
  
With BJ's advance, Hawkeye's hallucinations retreated, disappearing like they never were, their voices slowly growing softer one by one.  
  
Hawkeye was frozen as BJ neared the Swamp, the piece of glass falling from his suddenly nerveless fingers.  
  
BJ opened the door, letting in the scant light of the outside lamps as the last of the shadows dissipated. He moved to the light above his bunk and turned it on, "You'll never guess what happened in-" BJ stopped, his happy expression turning to one of concern as he saw Hawkeye standing stock-still in a circle of broken glass. "Hawk? Are you ok?"  
  
Hawkeye came to himself, fully aware for the first time in a long time that the only voices he heard were his own thoughts and BJ's soothing baritone.  
  
Looking across the empty tent at the man in a halo of light who'd driven away his demons, Hawkeye sought to fill the sudden vacuum of noise he'd been left with, with a sorely inadequate statement.  
  
"Yeah," Hawkeye's voice wavered as he stepped out of the ring of glass and into the light. His voice became stronger, "yeah, I think I'm all right."

Finis


End file.
